Budget reform missing in action

President Barack Obama began his second term in office last week with an inaugural address that wrapped the traditional lofty rhetoric around a defense of activist government and a call to further expand federal power on environmental issues.

President Barack Obama began his second term in office last week with an inaugural address that wrapped the traditional lofty rhetoric around a defense of activist government and a call to further expand federal power on environmental issues.

The basic themes of the speech are likely to intensify what the president called “centuries-long debates about the role of government.”

Obama didn’t offer many specifics about how he intends to shape his leadership legacy, except to suggest that he is more likely to defend the entitlement state instead of reform it.

This is not encouraging news for a nation with a huge budget deficit, a $16-trillion-plus debt and future commitments to Social Security and Medicare totaling in the tens of trillions of dollars.

Obama did say that “outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time.” And he added the obvious: “We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.”

Indeed, the cost of providing health care through Medicare and Medicaid is consuming a growing share of the nation’s economic output; this will increase with the full implementation of the president’s health care law. If serious efforts aren’t made to rein in these costs, the economy will suffer.

But Obama didn’t demonstrate a sense of urgency about the deficit, the national debt and the cost of entitlement programs. He stressed “security” and the commitments Washington has made to entitlements.

Obama also said he will respond to the “threat of climate change.” This evidently means he is prepared to impose substantial costs on the private sector in the name of controlling or improving the climate.

It’s not clear how this will affect the economic security of Americans. Millions of people are still suffering from the lagging economy. The president said an “economic recovery has begun.” That’s true, but it’s a slow, weak and perhaps fragile recovery. Obama hasn’t proposed plans to strengthen it, other than small-scale stimulus measures. A hope is that he doesn’t hinder the recovery with environmental mandates and deficit spending.

Millions of Americans, including Republicans, Democrats and independents, agree that the biggest challenge facing the nation is the deficit and the enormous national debt. Obama has yet to rise to this challenge. He has yet to show that he intends to take the necessary steps to control the growth of entitlements — the key to solving the debt crisis.

Obama said we can’t expect to resolve centuries-long ideological differences — but that we must “act.” He must understand that he is the only one in Washington who has the power to bridge the ideological divide and bring about real budget reform.

His lasting legacy as a leader depends on him finding common ground with his ideological foes on the critical issue of our time.